Dark. The moon in the sky. Trees hung over the old police station in the small town.
Detective Henry had been busy. He was the only one left at work. The rest of the station employees had gone home. He thought he was the only one in the building. Then, he heard the sound of the outer-doors opening and steps coming down the hallway.
His office door burst open and a frightened boy, who looked around eighteen or nineteen, stood there.
“It killed her,” he said.
“Hold on, son,” Detective Henry told him, “sit down.”
There was a lamp in the detective’s office, a lot of darkness, and two chairs.
The boy sat down on the one opposite Detective Henry’s desk. “The monster. It killed her. Look, I know I’ll sound crazy, but it happened.”
“You seem . . . disoriented,” Detective Henry said.
“Wouldn’t you be? If your girlfriend had been . . . had been…” The boy began to cry.
“Calm down, son. Calm down. Do you want a tissue?” Detective Henry didn’t normally keep a tissue box on his desk. That was more a therapist’s tool in trade, but Officer Kowalski had forgotten it there, yesterday. They’d been talking about golf. Officer Kowalski had a slight cold.
So…
Detective Henry offered one to the boy.
“Thanks,” the teenager said getting ahold of himself. He wiped the tissue across his face quickly, not doing a very good job of wiping away his tears, but holding the kleenex made the boy stabler. “It looked like a snake. It had glittering eyes. Green. And a large head with a long snake tongue and it’s face had scales.”
“So you saw . . . a snake?” Detective Henry asked.
“It was human. I mean, it’s body was human. It’s head was a man-size rattler. It was smiling horribly.”
Detective Henry paused. “Did it have fangs?” he asked. He didn’t know what else he should say.
“It had fangs.”
The boy paused. “The thing was . . . smiling,” he said again,as if he couldn’t get the image out of his mind.
“Now . . . other then this smiling snake head, it was humanoid?” Detective Henry decided it was best to keep going along with the story.
“The thing wrapped it’s body around my girlfriend and started licking her. I tried to stop it, but it pushed me to the ground!”
Detective Henry cleared his throat, acting embarrassed. “O-K-ay.”
“It’s tongue lashed out really fast and hooked into my girlfriend’s mouth. She started spazzing, I mean . . . she was having seizures. Like an epileptic. It must have been poisoning her. By the time I could get near her, her skin had turned blue and I knew . . . she was dead. It sounds like I’m on drugs,” the boy said. He looked like he was going to cry. Again.
Detective Henry took out another tissue from Officer Kowalski’s kleenex box. That somehow stopped the teenager.
“The snake-man pushed me away from her, I fell down, splayed out on the ground, right in front of it. I looked up at the thing. I thought it was going to kill me, but it didn’t.”
“Why was that?”
“I ran!”
“Mmm.”
“The whole thing sounds crazy, right?” The boy seemed more then slightly hysterical.
“Son? Do you know where . . . your girlfriend’s body is?” Detective Henry leaned forward on his desk. He’d been tired, but the story had woken him up.
“When I was far enough away, I looked back. Once. It wasn’t chasing me. It must have given up. It had gone back to my girlfriend and it was carrying her. The creature probably hid the body somewhere. After I was sure I’d escaped, I wandered around awhile. I don’t know how long. I was in shock. Then, I came here.”
“I see,” Detective Henry said.
“What are you going to do?!”
The boy sounded panicked, but Detective Henry noted his air of authority kept the boy from getting completely out of hand.
“OK, now you listen to me, son. No one’s going to believe a story about a man’s head turning into a snake head and murdering a girl who can’t be found.”
“I didn’t mention anything about . . . a man turning into . . .that thing.” The boy looked confused.
Detective Henry went over to his office door and locked it with a key. The door locked from the inside as well, in case the police station was dealing with someone violent. He didn’t think his subject was violent. “You’re right,” Detective Henry said. Dark shadows covered his features. He paused. “I did.”
When he came into the light, he had the head of a snake and glittering green eyes.
His tongue lashed out before the boy could scream.
___
© 2009 David Alan Richards
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Tags: David Alan Richards
July 16th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Neat story with a cool concept. Good job.
BTW, the line “turned blue and I knew . . . she was know,” doesn’t make sense to me.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Creepy stuff….!
July 16th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Grabbed my attention the whole way. Loved the ending. Good job, David.